The balance of a tennis racquet is an important characteristic to take into consideration.
It's often confused with the weight of the racquet.
The balance of the racquet will have an important impact on the manoeuvrability of the racquet.
This page helps you understand how the balance of a tennis racquet might influence your sensations while playing tennis.
The length of an adult tennis racquet is most of the time 68,5 cm.
Hence, for an evenly balanced tennis racquet, the balance point will be at around 34 cm from the bottom of the handle.
However, a tennis racquet with such a balance will give the impression that the racquet is a bit head heavy.
Evenly balanced tennis racquets have a balance point around 33 cm or 32 cm.
Such tennis racquets are versatile.
They are a good choice for beginners and even for intermediate and advanced players.
Head heavy tennis racquets have most of their weight located in the head of the racquet.
They have a balance point located further than 33 cm.
These tennis racquets provide more power, as long as you can handle them.
Indeed, head heavy tennis racquets frequently have a higher swingweight, which reduces their manoeuvrability.
This can be interesting for players looking for easy power, like beginners but not only.
Many advanced players like to have some extra weight at the tip of the racquet to increase the momentum of the racquet while hitting the ball.
Several studies have shown that this kind of tennis racquet increase the risk of injury, tennis elbow for instance but also wrist injuries.
Twisting forces are increased with such tennis racquets when hitting the ball and this might be harmful for the elbow.
When playing with a lot of top spin and when using the wrist intensely to brush up the ball, the extra weight at the tip of the racquet might be hard to swing for the wrist.
My advice is to avoid extremely head heavy balance.
Instead chose an evenly balanced tennis racquet or a tennis racquet slightly head heavy balanced.
Head light tennis racquets have most of their mass located towards the bottom of the racquet.
Their balance point have a value about 32 cm and less.
Head light racquets give less easy power and provide more control.
They are also easier to handle and to swing.
They are less prone to induce injuries such as tennis elbow or wrist tendonitis than head heavy tennis racquets.
Generaly speaking, head light tennis racquets are rather heavy. Indeed, a head light tennis racquet too light would not provide enough power.
That's why many advanced players like this kind of racquets.
They are able to generate their own power with their technique, and the racquet gives them a good amount of control and manoeuvrability.
Players who like the net game also like this kind of tennis racquets because of their manoeuvrability very interesting on short swings.
You'll often see the notations HH (Head Heavy) or HL (Head Light) for the specifications of tennis racquets.
These are US values to measure the balance of a racquet.
The more HH has a high value, the more the racquet is head heavy.
The more HL has a high value, the more the racquet is head light.
The following tables show the conversions of the balance point between HH/HL notations and centimeters.
The values correspond to a tennis racquet with a length of 68,5 cm.
For the ones who love mathematics, here are the formulas, with L as the length of the racquet in centimeters :
As noted earlier, the value in centimeters corresponds to the balance point measured from the bottom of the handle.
My advice is to avoid extreme values.
According to your technical skills and your physical capabilities, try to find the heavier racquet possible, not too head heavy.
It'll help you develop a good technique and it'll protect you from injuries.
HL (Head Light) | Balance point cm. |
---|---|
1 HL | 33.97 cm |
2 HL | 33.66 cm |
3 HL | 33.34 cm |
4 HL | 33.02 cm |
5 HL | 32.7 cm |
6 HL | 32.39 cm |
7 HL | 32.07 cm |
8 HL | 31.75 cm |
9 HL | 31.43 cm |
10 HL | 31.12 cm |
11 HL | 30.8 cm |
12 HL | 30.48 cm |
HH (Head Heavy) | Balance point cm. |
---|---|
1 HH | 34.61 cm |
2 HH | 34.93 cm |
3 HH | 35.24 cm |
4 HH | 35.56 cm |
5 HH | 35.88 cm |
6 HH | 36.2 cm |
7 HH | 36.51 cm |
8 HH | 36.83 cm |
9 HH | 37.15 cm |
10 HH | 37.47 cm |
11 HH | 37.79 cm |
12 HH | 38.1 cm |
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